The murder of Yellow Cab driver Paul Stine in Presidio Heights on October 11th 1969 has often raised more questions than answers - in particular the men's size 7 black leather gloves - retrieved from the front section of Paul Stine's taxicab. But were they the gloves of the Zodiac Killer? With so many conflicting theories regarding much of the subject matter in this case, it is imperative that we create a timeline of events surrounding the callous execution of Paul Stine. The observations of the three teenagers from a nearby residence, overlooking the crime scene at 3898 Washington Street, is the only thing we have to go on during the crucial time period. The teenagers stated three key pieces of information; namely, they heard no gunshot, the killer used a white rag (possibly a handkerchief) to wipe down the interior of the taxicab, before exiting the vehicle and wiping down an area of the driver side door; and finally, they only saw the killer in the front of Paul Stine's taxicab, not the rear. One possibility examined explores the idea that the Zodiac Killer may not have been in the back of Paul Stine's taxicab as it approached the Washington and Cherry Street intersection, as explained here. This unfolding order of events also explains his reasons for taking the wallet and keys from the victim Paul Stine - see here. But what about the gloves?

As stated in the linked articles, if the Zodiac Killer had attempted to or wiped down the exterior of the driver side door handle and panel, we must assume he had touched it at some point in the night's proceedings. It has been suggested he may have leaned on the driver side door after he had hailed the taxicab in the theater district some 15 minutes earlier. This would assume the killer had hailed down the taxicab from the opposite side of the road, then placed his hands on the taxicab driver's door to converse with Paul Stine, with the full knowledge he was about to commit murder but a short time later, not withstanding the fact, that if he had been in possession of a pair of leather gloves, he could easily have worn them during the entire journey

This suggests that the fingerprints must have been deposited at another point in the timeline, but unlikely to have been at the Washington and Cherry Street intersection. Had he shot Paul Stine at this location, he would have exited on to the street via the right rear passenger door and entered the right front passenger door, keeping deposited fingerprints to a minimum, if he was not wearing gloves. He was first observed by the three teenagers in the mid to passenger side front of the taxicab, lending credence to this order of events. Had he been wearing gloves when he initially entered the taxicab, then he must have removed them at some point in the journey, possibly to facilitate the operation and control of the weapon.

If as speculated in the article Presidio Heights-The Final Chapter, he had shot Paul Stine performing a run through stop at the Washington and Maple intersection with the taxicab motioning forward out of control, then he had every reason to react quickly via the shortest route, thereby exiting the left rear door and depositing fingerprints on the exterior driver side door, before clambering over Paul Stine and regaining control of the vehicle. If this scenario is correct, he was not wearing any gloves at this point, because of his need for fingerprint removal at Washington and Cherry. His wiping down of the taxicab also appears to negate his claim in the Bus Bomb Letter of wearing transparent fingertip guards, which additionally, would have been rendered useless had he been wearing gloves.

In the article The Keys and Wallet, it was suggested that in attempting to regain control over the wayward taxicab it may have stalled, facilitating the need for the Zodiac Killer to touch the ignition keys and restart the engine. In addition, his search for Paul Stine's wallet necessitated the removal of this item from the crime scene also. It was far safer and faster to take these items with him, than to waste valuable time removing fingerprints from them within the taxicab. But there is a problem.

He removed the wallet and keys to keep his fingerprints from the evidence room, he wiped down the interior and exterior of the taxicab, yet we assume he inadvertently left a pair of black leather gloves sitting in plain sight. If he placed them there as "fake clews", then in doing so he risked placing fingerprints upon them as he did so, unless of course they were brand new and carried to the scene in a sealed container, before being dropped. However, any contact with these gloves prior to October 11th 1969, may still have proved problematic. ​The Zodiac Killer in all his actions, seemingly removed items from the scene for a logical reason, because they may have harbored fingerprint evidence. Leaving "fake" items for recovery by investigators seems an unlikely scenario.

The eyewitnesses at three of the crime scenes described the Zodiac Killer as heavyset, between 5'8" and 6'0" in height - yet these gloves were men's size 7 - which by most recognized standards, is extra small. The correlation between hand size and height is statistically significant and fairly linear. Generally people with bigger hands are taller. In an examination of hand span to height, measuring a number of individuals, it becomes apparent that an individual of at least 5'10" or 70" in height, has a hand span in excess of 20 cm or 7.87 inches. A perpetrator with size 7 gloves or hand span of 17.8 cm would generally fall in the shorter category. If you look at the hand spans below 20 cm, in the range of 17.8 to 19.0 cm, it shows heights of 62, 65, 68, 64, 68 and 64 inches (between 5'2" and 5'8"), and all below the general consensus of around 5'10" for the Zodiac Killer. However, It must be stressed that this can only be used as a guide, and could not be used to eliminate the Zodiac Killer as the owner of the gloves - just make it less likely.

The actions of the Zodiac Killer, described by the three teenagers, seemed to suggest the Zodiac Killer was wiping away his fingerprints from the taxicab. The Zodiac Killer himself stated in the 'Bus Bomb' letter mailed on November 9th 1969: "As of yet I have left no fingerprints behind me contrary to what the police say, in my killings I wear transparent fingertip guards. All it is is 2 coats of airplane cement coated on my fingertips -- quite unnoticible + very efective". Either way, it is unlikely he ever wore gloves. Robert Graysmith detailed the gloves in his book 'Zodiac', stating“Just under the dash, Toschi found a pair of dull-black leather gloves. They were soaked with blood but were too small for a man. Later he discovered that they belonged to a woman passenger from earlier in the day.”The previous fare had traveled from Pier 64 to San Francisco Air Terminal on a mild October night of 59 degrees. Possibly they were traveling to colder climes.

Hey Rich, remember yesterday we were talking about the occupants of 3712, The Bloch's, Helen & Fred.

Well Fred, as far as I have been able to discern, had investments all over the Bay Area & beyond in numerous Businesses throughout the United States.
One of the Bloch Family's earliest companies they were Co Owners of was:

Bloch A. S. & Co. (A. S. Bloch) glove mfrsm,. 508, 4th Street.

Reply

Richard

6/28/2015 12:20:32 am

It's a shame the area of Third Street and 508 Fourth Street were not a few miles further south, to tie in with my Bayview theory, that would have been great, nonetheless the 3712 Jackson, 3477 West Pacific and these locations do tie in nicely with Mason and Geary and a likely travel route home. These gloves have always been an issue, the ones found appear to be too small for a heavyset man with presumably 10.5 footwear, furthermore the Zodiac was careful to remove all items that weren't bolted to the taxicab, such as the wallet and keys, so leaving gloves behind seems odd. I lean toward the idea they were not his.In terms of your suspect Lawrence Kane, Gregory noted something # Lawrence Kane moved at roughly the same time as Donna Lass in the June of 1970, however the Zodiac was still mailing letters from San Francisco after this date, yet Lake Tahoe is 200 miles away, how do you account for this problem, then to Las Vegas it would seem a bit of an effort to be bothered to travel for hours just to mail a letter, unless he was still visiting friends from the area and killed two birds with one stone. Was he still in Las Vegas in 1974 when Dana Lull was murdered, if so how could he travel 500 miles to mail the remaining 1974 Zodiac letters. I have always liked Larry Kane, as one of the better suspects, but this seems hard to reconcile.

Reply

Richard

6/28/2015 12:41:37 am

The body of Rosa Vasquez (20) was discovered close to the Arguello boulevard entrance of the Golden Gate Park on May 29th 1973. She had been strangled and thrown from the nearby road. Almost three years earlier Donna Ann Lass disappeared from the Sahara Tahoe Hotel on September 6th 1970 after finishing her shift as a nurse. A few months earlier in June she had moved to South Lake Tahoe, from San Francisco, where she had previously been employed as a nurse at the Letterman General Hospital in the Presidio, near the Paul Stine murder scene. Curiously Rosa Vasquez was also employed at the Letterman General Hospital as a keypunch operator.
A keypunch is a device for delivering punch holes at specific locations on a card face, to carry information for a relevant task. This was apparent on two cards possibly sent by the Zodiac Killer, when the 13 Hole Postcard was received on October 5th 1970, along with the Pines Card on March 22nd 1971, albeit prior to the murder of Rosa Vasquez. She was also a resident of 834 Bush Street, close to the collective of the Good Times newspaper at 2377 Bush Street. The Letterman General Hospital is something you were interested in regarding Kane. What are the odds of two people being murdered associated with the same building inside of three years. Where was Kane in 1973.
Nancy Patricia Gidley (24) was last seen alive on Thursday July 12th 1973 leaving the Rodeway Inn at 895 Geary Street, San Francisco, forever synonymous with the likely area that Paul Stine collected his final passenger, before being callously gunned down in the Presidio Heights district, almost four years earlier on October 11th 1969. Her body was found on Sunday 15th July 1973, nude and strangled in the grounds of George Washington High School in the Richmond area, although it was believed she was murdered elsewhere.
Formerly stationed at Hamilton Air Force Base for four years, until the early months 1972, Miss Gidley an X-ray technician, arrived in San Francisco in mysterious circumstances, supposedly invited to be the maid of honor at a wedding, which apparently nobody was able to verify. Before leaving her home in Idaho, she also told close friends her intention to work as a freelance writer at the Chronicle Newspaper, but staff at the Chronicle, again, had never heard of her.
Angela Thomas (16), a resident of Belton, Texas, had traveled to San Francisco for brief stay. After a day out in Hayward, she visited friends in the Presidio district, but neither of her friends were at home and she was last seen walking away at 9.00pm on Sunday July 1st 1973. She was found naked and smothered the following day in the grounds of Benjamin Franklin Junior High School.

Reply

John Corbin

12/14/2018 08:16:14 am

In all likelihood, Zodiac sat in the rear. Stine brought the cab to a stop and put it in Park. The Zodiac then shot him in the head, the contact with his head muffling the report of the Luger. He then pushed him against to door to steady Stine's corpse, and then moved out the passenger rear door, and got in the front seat, careful to close the doors quietly. The Robbin's kids most likely looked out soon AFTER he moved to the front seat. The gloves were most certainly women's gloves not men's, or perhaps boys gloves. The "fake clews" would be "prints" that wouldn't be obtainable because his fingertips were indeed coated in the airplane glue and he was staging a scene to throw off the police. He left the gloves as part of this ruse. The "white handkerchief" the kids saw him "wiping" the car down with, also part of his fake display, was most likely the tail from Stine's shirt but in the dark at 60' appeared mostly white and thusly they assumed that's what it was. The "prints" left behind on the outside weren't usable because he had indeed coated his fingertips--and perhaps his palms, he was exceedingly cautious--and he knew the smudged prints would frustrate the cops. I think he probably even hoped someone would observe him in the act, thus becoming 'witnesses' to his altered crime scene. This surely was a ballsy move!

Reply

John Corbin

12/14/2018 08:32:25 am

I also think the police SAID the gloves belonged to a woman from an earlier fare but this wasn't true. It's not uncommon for the police to give misinformation, as they choose, for their own purposes of preserving integrity of the case and control of accurate information. And typically, people don't get in the front seat with taxi drivers. Given Stine was a man, fairly stout and a potential threat or deterrent to a side-by-side altercation, it's just unlikely Zodiac sat next to him. It would be too risky that Stine would have deflected the gun, or fought back, etc. A rear approach is the best explanation and the Robbins kids looked down on the scene a minute or two into its occurrence.

Reply

Leave a Reply.

This website contains no advertisements. To help keep it running, any donations, however small, would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Richard.